Autumn leaf season in Japan is tracked through the dates the Japan Meteorological Agency announces from maple and ginkgo trees at each city’s observatory. The colour starts in Hokkaido in late October and moves south to Kyushu over about a month.
Maple colour, city by city
Turned red Leaves fallen (80%)
Japan Meteorological Agency normals for 1991-2020, Japanese maple (iroha-kaede) sample trees. Sapporo observes the yama-momiji maple.
The colour date is the first day the tree is mostly red with almost no green left, and the leaf-fall date is the first day about 80% of its leaves have dropped. The trees are at their reddest between the two.
The agency’s trees stand at city observatories. Mountains and highlands, where it is colder, turn earlier than the cities nearby.
Ginkgo or maple first?
Ginkgo yellow Maple red
Japan Meteorological Agency normals for 1991-2020, ginkgo yellowing and maple colouring dates.
Ginkgo turns yellow and maple turns red. In Hakodate and Sendai the two change at about the same time, and in Sapporo the maples colour about a week before the ginkgo.
A normal is a 30-year average, so the actual dates move with each autumn’s temperatures. The Japan Meteorological Agency announces each date on the day it is observed on the sample tree.
